What Do I Do?
by nyssa123
Summary: On the morning when I woke up without you for the first time, I felt free and I felt lonely and I felt scared. Pretty obvious but not explicit John/Sherlock. Inspired by "Woke Up New" by The Mountain Goats.


Inspired by "Woke Up New" by The Mountain Goats. They're a good band- check 'em out. This song always makes me think of Sherlock, and apparently someone on the LiveJournal Kink Meme had the same idea. Enjoy :)

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><p>They forced him to go home. It was late, and he had already been there for three days straight, and when he begged Mycroft to pull some strings he only shook his head and steered him gently out of the room. He was too tired to throw a tantrum, and the chauffeur of the car Mycroft's assistant had helped him into had to wake him up once they got the Baker Street. He had caught a glimpse of Mrs. Hudson peeking around her door as he ascended the stairs, but thankfully she hadn't seen fit to try to talk to him.<p>

He had fallen asleep fully clothed, his shoes leaving gravel on the bedspread.

When he woke up the next morning, he felt lighter than usual. He sat up, blinking. He felt uncharacteristically groggy, his eyelids heavier than usual and his body stiff. He lay back down and stared at the pillow beside him, cold and unused.

"I am not going to sniff you." He said to the pillow, half expecting it to respond. The silence in the bedroom was heavy and tangible. In the back of his head, he began to worry that he would choke on it.

"I'm too hot." He flopped over onto his back. "I should take my coat off. But that means I would have to get up."

The pillow didn't say anything.

He got up.

The coat ended up thrown over the arm of the couch, half on the floor. He padded into the kitchen tentatively, glancing at the half-washed sink of dishes and the table, covered in questionable blue stains and bits of broken microscope. He snatched the cracked yellow kettle, staring at it for a moment before setting it down amidst the disarray and turning his back on it.

It took him ten minutes before he found the tea leaves in a tin hidden beneath the lower cabinet. He grabbed a handful, wincing as the kettle started to whistle and dumping the crunchy brown leaves into the boiling water.

There was far too much tea, and in the end it was watery and far too strong and rather awful. Bits of the leaves got stuck in between his teeth and he had to pick them out with his fingernails, sitting there in the kitchen, not wanting to have to face himself in the mirror.

He drank the entire pot, not wanting it to go to waste, out of some sort of weird Pavlovian conditioning.

After he had added his mug to the disaster area that was the sink, he stood in the doorway, looking out into the sitting room. His whole body felt awkward, his arms too long, too thin, his knees nearly knocking together. His teeth chattered in the unheated, early morning air, the space too cold from the cracked glass of the window overlooking the street. A car alarm began to go off a few blocks away, and across the road, a dog being walked barked.

He retreated to the bedroom, kneeling down in front of the dresser. His knees felt hard against the threadbare rug on the floor, and the wood under his palms was sturdy and pale and reliable and rough, the uneven grain comforting and familiar. The drawer slid out with a squeak of wood-on-wood-on-metal. The sweaters lay on top of one another, neatly folded and the color of unpasteurized milk. He pulled one on over his button down. It was itchy and rubbed against the skin of his neck, and it felt like all the things he didn't want to think about but couldn't stop thinking about.

He sat down in his chair, staring at the one across from him, empty and unwarmed by body heat. His throat began to close up, the silence from the bedroom finally rising and threatening to choke the breath out of him.

He blinked and he was outside, standing on the sidewalk and staring up at the windows. He shivered despite the jumper, his trousers thin and his toes growing numb as water soaked through the bottoms of his socks. There was a strong breeze blowing along Baker Street, bending the branches of the short, leaf-less trees that dotted the sidewalk, and it cut right through the knitted holes of the woolen sweater.

He was the only motionless thing on the street, cars and pedestrians in constant movement. Sound rose up around him, surrounded on all sides. He passed a hand over his face, thinking for some reason that he couldn't think of afterwards that the world on once side of his palm and the world on the other would be different.

He took a deep, shuddering breath with his long fingers pressed still over his mouth and tried to shove his panic down so that it was squeezed in between his liver and his pancreas and couldn't escape again.

Visiting hours were starting again soon, and there were empty taxis just waiting to be hailed. He molded his face to be carefully blank and started off down the street towards the hospital.

John had to wake up soon.


End file.
